Chelsea all but secures Premier League title with win over Arsenal

The race isn’t quite run two-thirds of the way yet. But it’s already abundantly clear who will win it. Such is Chelsea’s lead over the rest of the Premier League after 24 of the Blues’ 38 games.

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Because Saturday’s 3-1 win over Arsenal – thanks to a dubious goal by Marcos Alonso, an all-time tally by Eden Hazard and a Petr Cech error that gifted Cesc Fabregas a third; offset by an Olivier Giroud consolation goal – gave Antonio Conte’s blue machinery a 12-point lead at the top of the table, temporarily at least. Second-place Tottenham Hotspur could make up points later in the day. But third-place Arsenal, obviously, could not and will remain a dozen points behind. Liverpool and Manchester City each lag by 13 points, with a game in hand.

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While that gap is sizable but not enormous, the disparity between Chelsea’s efficient churn and everybody else’s inconsistent scrambling makes it highly improbable that anybody should catch the Blues.

There are almost four months left to play of this season. But Chelsea’s 13-match winning streak from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 put such distance between the four-time Premier League champions and the pack that a fifth title in 13 years seems unavoidable.

It feels ironic now, in retrospect, that Arsenal should have gotten the first chance in a game it lost so comprehensively. In the second minute, Chelsea turned over the ball playing out of the back when goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois couldn’t reconnect with David Luiz and Alex Iwobi picked the ball up and whipped a shot just wide.

But Chelsea would soon cut out the sloppiness in the back and seize control.

After 13 minutes, Pedro hit a cross at Diego Costa, whose header slammed off the crossbar. The ball looped skyward and Marcos Alonso beat Hector Bellerin to the header with the help of his arm, knocking down his fellow Spaniard who would need to be substituted – probably on the suspicion of a concussion. As Cech stood nailed to the ground, Alonso nodded the ball into the net.

Five minutes later, Victor Moses, Pedro and Costa linked up again up the right to create an overload, but Costa hit his finish into the side netting.

Chelsea was utterly dominant for the first half hour. With Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger still banned to the stands for shoving a fourth official, his team often looked disinterested and almost always overmatched.

The Gunners didn’t threaten again until the 38th minute, when Gabriel put a strong header on a cross but aimed it too close to Courtois. On the brink of halftime, Mesut Ozil created a shot for himself, but didn’t produce enough power to trouble Courtois.

Chelsea alternated between overrunning Arsenal and comfortably sitting in, absorbing modest pressure and breaking away. In the 54th minute, Hazard won possession well into his own half and then weaved and bulled his way through the entire Arsenal half before beating Cech. It was a stupendous individual effort of strength, guile and skill.

Arsenal looked beaten and disconnected thereafter. And other than a sprawling save by Courtois, the home side didn’t have much else to do on the defensive end.

In the 85th, Chelsea got a third goal. Cech committed a wretched turnover, rolling the ball right to Fabregas, who deftly dinked it into the empty net – the longtime Arsenal midfielder scoring for Chelsea against the longtime Chelsea goalkeeper.

Arsenal curbed the damage somewhat late on, when Giroud headed in Nacho Monreal’s sharp cross. But it was sort of typical of Arsenal this season, in that it was far too little and much too late.

But it was scant consolation. One side was very clearly a good deal better than the other. And that team, Chelsea, will cruise to the title.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.